


Reflections

by springbok7



Series: An Assortment of Teas and Biscuits [11]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: #TeamRasa, 007 Fest, 007 Fest Fancreations, 007 games, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, M/M, Pre-Slash, Team M-branch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-07
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-05 05:03:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15163262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/springbok7/pseuds/springbok7
Summary: Q and James each find themselves in ... unexpected circumstances.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AsheTarasovich (natalieashe)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/natalieashe/gifts), [Boffin1710](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boffin1710/gifts), [Dassandre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dassandre/gifts).



> My dear friends. Your support keeps me going. Always.
> 
> Unbeta-ed. All errors and typos are mine. Please feel free to let me know if you spot any and/or feel there should be additional tags. I welcome constructive criticism, but neither support or feed trolls.
> 
>    
>  _I do not own these characters. No infringement of copyright is intended and no profit is being made from this piece of fan-fiction._
> 
>  
> 
> Written 06 June 2018

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q struggles with the loss of a friend, and the loss of what might have been.

RAF Captain Johannas Richard Mulliner stares at the mirror over the sink, knuckles white with the force of his grip on the pale porcelain.  

It has only been four days.  

A lifetime.  An eternity of agony.

The blink of an eye.

The man staring back at him is nigh unrecognizable.

The skin on that man is sallow, jaundiced, weathered.

The hair on his scalp is lank, lusterless, and limp, plastered to skin in an oily mess.

He doesn’t remember when was the last time he showered.

The eyes are sunken in, shadows like pitch painted beneath them.

No amount of soap will wash away that grease.

The cheeks gaunt beneath the black, hollow and fallen in.

A toothless, broken old man stares back, not a mid-thirties Quartermaster.

He has not been this unrecognizable to himself since the aeroplane collision during an airshow that claimed two pilots, four spectators, and his love of flying.

It hadn’t been his fault.  Still in the RAF, he had been the copilot that time, but the guilt -- and the horror -- had never left him, and he had not once set foot in an aeroplane since.  He had instead put his considerable talents to work for a different division of the British government.

And yet, here he stood again.  Faced -- again -- with the loss of a dear friend, someone with whom a burgeoning  _ something  _ had been slowly, slowly evolving from that friendship.

And now?  Now those dreams are ash on his tongue, soot in his lungs.

Choking him, suffocating him from the inside out.

Stamping out the last, tiny embers of compassion that had lingered in his soul, far more ruthlessly than any desensitising he might have experienced from the mayhem and destruction that is all in a day’s work for the Quartermaster and Double Os of MI6.

He bows his head, and lets the tears come.

No one to see him break.

No one to care.

“James …” he whispers into the silence of his flat.

~~~ OOQ ~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feed your author! Click the kudos or even better, leave a comment.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James regrets missed opportunities and struggles to understand what has happened to him.

Commander James René Bond, formerly RNVR, stands behind his weeping Quartermaster.

He tries again to rest his hand on the man’s shoulder, but the seventeenth attempt is as unsuccessful as the previous sixteen, and his insubstantial fingers pass through the flesh like smoke.

He does not understand what has happened.

Well, on some level he understands perfectly: he has died, expired, given up the ghost.

But, if he is indeed a ghost, how then is he still wandering around?

And why can he only move within a hundred metres of the Quartermaster?

He remembers everything.

The mission that went to shite almost before it’d even started.

The collision with the lorry that smashed into his beloved Aston, crushing his legs beneath the steering column and hurling the Aston from the tarmac.

The endlessly long, weightless fall as he and the mangled automobile fell from the bridge and into the river below.

He doesn’t remember the impact on the water.

Doesn’t remember the water rushing in to fill the tortured twist of metal and flesh and bone.  Though he’s sure it did, has seen it happen to others, _caused_ it to happen himself a time or two.

Perhaps he was already dead, or at least unconscious.

He’d known blood was gushing, had felt the searing pain in the moments before taking flight.

Perhaps he’d bled out before the impact.  He thought he might have preferred that death to drowning trapped in a car.

Even if it were _that_ car.

The car Q had restored for him, hour after hour.

Beautifully restored.

He had been so proud, too, when he’d handed James the keys.

James had almost -- almost! -- asked him out to dinner that day.

Almost.

Now all he can do is watch as Q drips salt tears into the sink.

Helpless.

Confused.

Lost.

He doesn’t understand why he is still here.

~~~ OOQ ~~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this! Please leave a comment or click the kudos button to let me know you did! <3


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